Category Archives: We Love Arts

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: God of Carnage

Photos: Scott Suchman

At the start of Signature Theatre’s God of Carnage, we find ourselves in the immaculate living room of the Novak family. The modern style and elegance of the whole scene looks as if it was ripped out of a catalog: fresh flowers, a beautiful city skyline, smiling faces from those that are inhabiting the space.

The serenity and beauty of the scene is but a fleeting moment in Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award winning play, the chaos that unfolds will leave the room in a completely different state: floor covered with papers, feathers, and shoes; cigars and glasses of liquor strewn about; actors with scowls that have been stripped of all manners and outward politeness.

This short one-act (approximately 80 minutes) is essentially a strip-show of political correctness where the characters take off layers of social manners piece by piece. What we end up with are subjects that bare-all to the audience.

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Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Dogugaeshi

Basil Twist's production of Dogugaeshi. Photo credit: Richard Termine.

The only reason I didn’t give Basil Twist’s hypnotic Dogugaeshi a standing ovation was that I was simply too stunned to rise from my seat.

Certainly I was prepared to be enchanted, after my last experience of the Basil Twist Festival – Petrushka at Shakespeare Theatre Company – but this was even more intense. Over the course of one hour I’d been transported, body and mind, to a theatrical state I had never experienced before.

There’s a haunting beauty to Dogugaeshi. As it’s a very brief run I urge you to catch it this week before closing on April 22. If it were just a presentation of Japanese folk puppet theater, that would still be reason to see it, but Twist takes this classic form and reframes it as a profound elegy on time and the ephemeral nature of beauty.

It’s the dogugaeshi itself, a “set change” stage mechanism, that tricks the eye until the viewer is almost in a trance. Or is it that strange, playful fox blowing out a candle? Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Spidermusical

The production story of Broadway’s blockbuster musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark“, has more twists and turns than the actual musical. With a monster budget, superstar composers, and ambitious aerial stunts the show has been plagued with delays, technical mishaps, and harsh reviews. As a result the show has been the target of many late-night jokes and parodies. Leave it to Timothy Michael Drucker, creator of “Perez Hilton Saves The Universe“, to write his own Spider Man musical using a fraction of the budget of the Broadway production. Affectionately called “Spidemusical: A Second Chance For Awesome”, the show pokes fun at its blockbuster brother which boasts production costs upwards of a million dollars a week. After a New York run, the show arrives in D.C. where the daring folks at Landless Theatre Company take on the challenge of essentially making a sweded version of Turn Off the Dark.

Instead of high wire acrobatics, Landless employs an action figure tied to a stick. You won’t find fancy costumes in this show, instead actors don animal masks that look like they were plucked from the local Toys ‘R Us. The show is hilariously campy without going over the top. It is the perfect blend of humor and performance.

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Long Day’s Journey into Night

Peter Michael Goetz as James Tyrone, Sr. and Helen Carey as Mary Tyrone in Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater’s production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. Photo by Scott Suchman.

It’s hard not to feel hopeless while watching Eugene O’Neill’s Long Days Journey into Night. The day after I saw Arena Stage‘s production of this three hour masterpiece on how to tear your family apart, the headlines were full of stories proving the play’s relevancy to our times. Sales of the two most popular prescription painkillers (oxycodone and hydrocodone, of the opioid category) have risen dramatically in new areas of the US. Concurrent with the increase in sales is the increase in overdose deaths and pharmacy robberies. It’s an addiction problem that begins not with recreational use, but with using the medication initially for pain.

Just like poor Mary Tyrone, hooked on dope for decades following a difficult birth in a sordid hotel.

Played by the radiantly distraught Helen Carey, this long-suffering mother seems the proper focus for the play’s maelstrom of guilt and self-deceit. The whole family is caught in a continuous cycle of devastating returns to the past and an inability to escape. It’s a harrowing seesaw of emotions for an audience to endure. Luckily, director Robin Phillips introduces just enough laughter intermixed with the morbidity to allow us to hope.

But, it’s apparent as a society we have a long way to go to shake the yoke of the “poison” Mary takes. To call it a matter of willpower is a tragic misunderstanding. The Tyrones certainly aren’t able to exert any willpower about anything, as they repeatedly rip up each other in the present in an effort to win in the past.

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We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Arias with a Twist

Joey Arias in Arias with a Twist. Photo by Steven Menendez

Woolly’s Arias with a Twist is Arias as in Joey Arias, drag performer, and Basil Twist as in puppets. The show is visually stunning on every level – the lighting, costumes, sets, and oh my, the puppetry – the puppetry is superb. And I was bored through almost all of it.

Which is so disappointing. I love a good, campy, drag show. I love live music and cover songs. But it would have taken a step up for me to make it to underwhelmed by the experience as a whole. We got more enjoyment after the show from ranking which other theater would be more or less likely to show someone feliating a puppet. [For the record, we had no consensus on most likely, but National was the winner for least probable]

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: The Taming of the Shrew

Irina Tsikurishvili as Katherine, Ryan Sellers as Petruchio, Alex Mills as Grumio in Synetic Theater's Taming of the Shrew. Photo credit: Johnny Shyrock.

Synetic Theater takes Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and beautifully reinvents it – not as a “problem play” about women being subjugated to men, but as a love story between two people desperately trying to cast off their masks and rise above the damage of broken trust. It’s effectively rescued from the misogynist dustbin in a rollicking ninety minutes, performed with all the sexy aplomb of an Italian fashion show on acid.

The production also sees the apex of choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili’s skill, where movement is flawlessly integrated to characterization and plot. Allowing not only for the usual expected moments of Synetic athleticism, but also for quiet beauty that’s truly human, this is dance theater at its finest.

Opening with a funeral to pinpoint the heartbreak of two motherless women, director Paata Tsikurishvili frames the story in a helpful way that provides motivation for both sisters’ acting out. While older Katherine (Irina Tsikurishvili) explodes in caustic rage at paparazzi, the younger Bianca (Irina Kavsadze) struts and pouts for the tabloids. Into their hollow lives come two men completely outside the flash – earnest Lucentio (Scott Brown) and rebellious Petruchio (Ryan Sellers).

Oh, there’s also a wink to Victoria’s Secret catwalk shows, a hair-raising motorcycle ride, nude modeling, body paint, and a rubber chicken. Irreverent? Definitely. But always in service to the story.
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We Love Arts: Strange Interlude

Rachel Spencer Hewitt as Madeline Arnold and Joe Short as Gordon Evans in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Strange Interlude, directed by Michael Kahn. Photo by Scott Suchman.

Before there was Herman’s Head there was Eugene O’Neill and Strange Interlude.

Wait, where are you going? Come back!

Okay, sorry, sorry – I get it, comparing a B-level 90s sitcom to the Pulitzer-winning work of a nobel laureate is maybe a little jarring. The Shakespeare Theater Company’s production of Strange Interlude is certainly a far cry better than the show that brought us such masterful dialog as “regret is a rough sheet to sleep on,” but they’re both trying to do the same thing: give the viewer a peek behind the curtain of what a person says, shows, and implies and instead convey every exact thought.

Michael Kahn trimmed the notoriously long play himself and directed this cast, providing us with a snappy, funny, clever, compelling, riveting, tragic story of people living the lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau described. O’Neill wanted to expose us to that song rather than just see the reflection of it around the edges and STC’s production does it beautifully. It might be longest show I have ever seen in the Harman and may also be the one that felt the shortest.

In the spirit of the play I’ll be explicit: I really loved it.

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We Love Arts, We Love Music
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We Love Arts: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

YouTube Preview Image

For three days only – with two now remaining – Constellation Theater Company brings you Tom Teasley, performing live accompaniment to the almost 90-year-old animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It’s a blast, and the best $20 you’ll pay for a musical performance this year.

Admittedly, on a beautiful day like today you might wish this was going on out at the lawn at Wolf Trap. But any longing you have to be anywhere else should pretty well disappear within about five minutes of the lights going out. The initial hook for me was “oldest surviving animated film,” but after a few minutes of admiring the techniques I found myself engrossed in the story.

Photo courtesy of Kevin H.
Cartoon
courtesy of Kevin H.

Teasley’s music takes a good deal of credit for that. His middle-eastern inspired sound melds some afro-rhythms, in particular when the African wizard is on screen. Through it all it’s a guided improv piece; when I asked during the subsequent Q&A why he’d choose to do a live piece rather than a single recording the answer was short and to the point. “I’m a jazz musician,” Teasley said, and that informs all his choices.

The subsequent Q&A was almost as entertaining as the performance itself. Teasley quipped about why he’s do this in conjunction with Constellation, in comparison to past collaborations when he provided scores for performances. “The actors keep talking over my music.” We were treated to a bit of talk about his collaborations and nowhere near enough show-and-tell about the array of instruments he pilots through the piece.

If you go it’s possible you’ll hear an entirely new array of information; the post-show session is open for questions from the audience, so if something else is more in your wheelhouse you’re free to ask. All indications are that Teasley will answer. His passion and enthusiasm for the work comes through and it’s obviously dear to him. After an hour of never getting a moment’s rest while accompanying the film it would have to be.

Tickets are still available on the Constellation website, and if you enjoy the sound from the clip above I would highly encourage you to go.

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: iMusical Time Machine

Washington Improv Theatre’s “iMusical” has been a long-standing staple to the theatre’s slate of rotating productions. For several years the improvised musical has taken on new formats and wrinkles and the latest includes a trip back in time.

Last weekend I visited The Source on 14th street to see what happens when a group not only has to create comedic material on the fly but also add a little song and dance as well.

The show starts with the selection of the time period, which was done by a random audience member who chose among four mystery cards. In the show I attended the ensemble was sent back… to the future!

After collecting suggestions of futuristic themes and ideas (rocket ships and really small iPods), the ensemble got to work in creating a musical about a two families who become separated from their sons. Because it was in the future it was only appropriate that one family consisted of a brazen space explorer father and a half-human, half-cylon mother.

Things certainly got interesting that night.

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The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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The Big Dance Hits DC Theatre With Monologue Madness

This weekend a beleaguered tournament will come to an end where only one will walk away with the title of champion.

Of course I’m not talking about the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament- that game is on Monday.

Up in Bethesda this Sunday a different kind of competition will unfold where 32 actors will only have 60 seconds to prove they are worthy to of the title of Monologue Madness Champion.

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Cherry Blossom Festival, Entertainment, Special Events, The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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This Saturday: Samurai Cinema Triple Feature!

Photo courtesy National Geographic

Want something a little different to make this year’s cherry blossom visit truly magnificent? How about a great samurai triple feature?  The National Geographic Museum will be presenting three classics of Japanese cinema, all featuring the iconic Toshiro Mifune and presented in stunning 35mm! Presented in conjunction with the National Geographic Museum exhibition Samurai: The Warrior Transformed, the films will be introduced by Michael Jeck, veteran film programmer notable for commentary on Criterion DVD releases of Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood.

Admission to each film is $5, though you can see them for free with paid admission to the new samurai exhibit. (The offer is valid only for exhibit tickets purchased for Saturday, 3/31; there are a limited number of tickets available.) Warning—these films all have some pretty violent content. Film details after the jump. Continue reading →

Downtown, Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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National Geographic Live: April 2012

Photo courtesy National Geographic

April looms large in front of us and so does a beautiful spring. While tourists flood the Tidal Basin, why not check out the April programming for National Geographic Live? The National Geographic Museum is offering WeLoveDC readers a chance to enjoy one of their premier events in the coming month. We’re giving away two pairs of tickets to readers this Friday; look through the great programs listed below and pick two you’d like to attend. In the comment field, simply enter your choices. (Make sure you use your first name and a valid email address!) Winners for April will be chosen at random after noon on March 30.

All programs (unless otherwise noted) take place in Grosvenor Auditorium at 1600 M Street, NW. Tickets may be purchased online at www.nglive.org, via telephone at (202) 857-7700, or in person at the National Geographic ticket office between 9 am and 5 pm. Free parking is available in the National Geographic underground garage for all weekday programs that begin after 6 pm. Continue reading →

We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Brother Russia

Photos by Scott Suchman.
Grigori (Doug Kreeger, holding basket) is happily greeted by a group of strangers for his healing powers.
Pictured left to right: Stephen Gregory Smith, Erin Driscoll, Russell Sunday, Rachel Zampelli.

Signature Theater’s Brother Russia is a pleasant enough musical, combining a talented cast, some catchy songs, and beautiful and clever staging. But the end result of turning the corrupt Mad Monk into a (sort of) redemptive and (very vaguely) redeemed mystic figure is odd and unsatisfying. It’s not the oddest use ever of Grigori Rasputin by a long shot, but the story doesn’t live up to the music and the production.

Brother Russia is framed as a more-or-less contemporary story of a decrepit Russian traveling theater/carnival who are themselves telling the story of Rasputin. Or Rasputin’s story as their troop leader claims it happened, which he’d know if indeed he himself is Grigori Rasputin as he claims. Confused yet? It’s less convoluted as acted out upon the stage… within the stage… but the story’s attempt to tell a wild fable and justify it as a modified oral history is undercut by its own staging. Certain choices near the end make a firm assertion that the story, impossible as it is, is literal truth. There’s even a twist/connection that a late-career M. Night Shyamalan might come up with.

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We Love Arts: The Art of Video Games

Photo courtesy of mosley.brian
We Love DC – Art of Video Games – 03-15-12 07
courtesy of mosley.brian

I promise, once you’re done reading this article, you’re going to want to dust off your Atari 2600, or NES, or PS1, or whatever was your first video game system, and play all the games you grew up with. That was my reaction, and I have the couple of hours I lost playing The Legend of Zelda last Saturday to prove it.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum opened their new exhibit, the Art of Video Games, with a big festival this past weekend. If you missed it, don’t worry; the real festival, the exhibit itself, is far from over, as it is going to be running until September 30th. Employing some impressive, and modern, multi-media tools, the museum has put together a truly engaging art exhibit of some very influencial, but generally overlooked, modern art. Namely, video games.  Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Petrushka

Basil Twist's production of Petrushka at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo credit: Richard Termine.

I’ve lost my heart to a clown.

It took less than an hour to be seduced by his madcap ways, his shining eyes like fiery coals, pleading for my adoration as he leapt over the stage – hovering magically, springing about with elastic grace.

Too bad he’s in love with someone else. She doesn’t deserve him. Oh, did I mention he’s a puppet? That’s probably a deal breaker too.

It’s a testament to the puppeteers’ skill that even during a post-performance demonstration of what goes on backstage, I still didn’t notice them. I tried, but they infuse the puppets themselves with so much life that it’s nearly impossible. That’s the power of Basil Twist‘s production of Petrushka. Words like joyful, exuberant, and humorous all spring about the mind like the puppets themselves, in perfect symbiosis with their masterful manipulators.

It’s inspired by the famous Ballet Russes production of Stravinsky’s score. That original clown was brought to life by the brilliant and damaged Vaslav Nijinsky, and this puppet Petrushka has enough nods to iconic images of Nijinksy’s performance and others in the Ballet Russes canon to please ardent balletomanes. Hauntingly beautiful from the beginning, it’s also a quick night of theater that enthralled the few children in the audience and took the rest of us back to those happy, pure days ruled by imagination.

Since this is a limited engagement at the Shakespeare Theatre Company (part of the Basil Twist Festival D.C.) closing on March 25, I’ll be blunt: go see it.  Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Ah, Wilderness!


Photo: Scott Suchman

Nostalgia has been on the minds of Americans more than ever. Pop culture junkies are writing about it, those disillusioned by our current economic times are looking back to sunnier days, and Hollywood is playing to our nostalgic tastes more than ever with remakes and reboots of shows and films of yesteryear.

This isn’t a new phenomena, in 1932 Eugene O’Neill wrote “Ah, Wilderness!” as a fond look back to the mood and world he grew up in as a teenager. It is a certainly a world viewed with rose-colored lenses, O’Neill grew up in a less than perfect home full of alcoholism and philandering yet in Arena Stage’s production we are presented with a more idyllic vision: a warm, fuzzy home where the mood is relaxed like a night sitting on the porch sipping an iced tea.

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Mr Daisey and the Imperiled Woolly Mammoth Run?

That’s the bomb This American Life just dropped on the web, perhaps not so coincidentally the same day as the new iPad hits the streets. The impact for DC is a little farther out: specifically, July 17th when “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” is scheduled to return to Woolly Mammoth.

Agony is the source material for the TaL episode and it’s a powerful piece; I saw it in previews and Patrick reviewed it when it came back in full release. I don’t know what was in the piece in its final form, but when I saw it there was even an explicit statement as part of the dialog where Mike Daisey says “I am not a journalist.” A statement he’s repeated today as part of his response to this development.

Whether or not that’s enough, or baloney, or a completely reasonable response, I have no idea yet. I’m looking forward to hearing the TaL piece and a detail of what is and isn’t factual in regards to Daisey’s time in China. Personally I’m uncomfortable with any piece that presents something as fact when it may be an embellishment or a composite, but not everyone agrees. Plenty of biopics come out of Hollywood that do it every year and the conflict can be seen in stark black and white in the new book The Lifespan of a Fact. In it John D’Agata’s resistance to an article fact-checker who took issue with his playing fast and loose in his “lyrical essay” takes on comically excessive proportions.

I do know that the portions of Daisey’s show that detailed events I was very familiar with – the early days in Silicon Valley – were accurate in relating the stories behind the early days of Apple,  Micro-Soft (as they were then named) and others. They might have been “lyricized” but I couldn’t tell from my recollection – if they were, it was in the manner of Monet where the up-close details might not make sense but the picture from afar was perfectly representative of the truth.

I’m curious to see what the TaL revelations are and eager to hear what Woolly Mammoth has to say about it. As I finish this I haven’t heard back from them yet. I expect they’re huddled up trying to decide what to do, or perhaps waiting as the rest of us are for the TaL details. I’d wager the show will go on, with perhaps a statement on the matter.

Update: Woolly Mammoth stated to DCist’s Ben Freed on twitter that Daisey’s July appearance is still on. A certain chief editor here wryly commented “hell, if I were them I’d extend.”

Downtown, Entertainment, Interviews, Music, People, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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Celtic Air: Moya Brennan

Photo courtesy of Marvin (PA)
Moya Brennan – Triskell – Trieste
courtesy of Marvin (PA)

What better way to truly celebrate the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day than to join a céilidh? Since such intimate gatherings are a bit tough to come by here in the DC area, the next best thing would be going to National Geographic and immersing yourself into the music of Moya Brennan. On her last stop of a brief U.S. tour, Moya will be filling the air with her ethereal voice and Irish and Gaelic music tradition.

Known best as the front singer for Clannad, Moya’s solo career has flourished over the last two decades. (My wife – herself of strong Irish heritage – and I have been a fan of her music since Moya’s first solo album Máire, which came out in 1992.) Bono of U2 describes her as “one of the greatest voices the human ear has ever experienced.” Her seemingly otherworldly voice mixed with her mastery of Irish and Gaelic musical traditions have made her into a master of taking traditional, cultural music and making it “new” for the modern age.

I had the extremely blessed opportunity to chat with her about her life, traditions, music, and Saturday’s sold out concert. Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Spamalot


Photo: Scott Suchman

My favorite moment of last night’s opening of Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Warner Theatre was at the top of the show after an opening graphic in the familiar Monty Python animation style.

As King Arthur (Arthur Rowan) comes “galloping in” with his trusty porter Patsy (Michael J Berry) who is clapping two coconut halves for effect, the packed house cheered and applauded. What followed was a familiar exchange for anybody that’s seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

GUARD: Where did you get the coconuts?

ARTHUR: We found them.

GUARD: Found them? In Mercea. The coconut’s tropical!

ARTHUR: What do you mean?

GUARD: Well, this is a temperate zone.

ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the housemartin or the plover may seek warmer lands in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.

GUARD : Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

ARTHUR: Not at all. They could be carried.

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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28th Helen Hayes Awards Nominees Announced

The Oscars maybe in the books but there’s still one more big show in the DC Arts Scene. Tonight the nominations for the 28th annual Helen Hayes Awards were announced in the Helen Hayes Gallery at the National Theatre.

Known as one of the country’s most prestigious cultural honors, the awards recognize the best of DC Theatre of the past year. The awards ceremony is affectionately known as “Drama Prom” (at least to me) and is one of the biggest theatre events of the area. Last year I had a blast covering the event and Jenn and I are excited to cover this year’s festivities.

Without further ado, here are the nominees (with links to our reviews)!

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